Glory Season

Apart from the first enigmatic grouping, the other three clusters of numbers quivered in a constant state of flux. As Maia watched, the “41” became “42,” then briefly “41” again, before jittering further down to “40.” Maia glanced at Leie. “Are you moving anything?”

“No, I swear.” Leie showed both hands.

“Well, go ahead,” Maia said. “Push something, slowly.”

Leie bent to grasp one of the measuring wheels between two fingers. At once the second grouping began to blur. “Stop!” Maia cried. The numbers stuttered, then settled to tiny excursions around the value 12E +18.

“Again. Keep going that way.”

Maia stood up, watching the screen as Leie resumed. Galaxies scrolled from left to right at an accelerating pace.

Only one of the number groups in the tiny window seemed affected.. The “E” shone steady, but Maia watched the “+8” turn into “+7”… and eventually “+6.”

“You’re right,” she told the navigator. “They are coordinates. I wonder why they replaced what was written there before.” She turned the other way. “Leie, let’s try taking down to zero—”

Her words were cut off by shock waves that reverberated through the chamber. Echoing booms spread out from the entrance. This time, it was no single, warning shot, but a rapid series of loud reports, followed by clamoring voices. The men who had been watching from the benches leaped up, scrambling toward the door, rushing to aid their comrades on duty in the corridor. The navigator dithered only a second before making the same choice and joining the pell-mell dash.

Leie looked at Maia. “I’ll go.”

Maia shook her head. “No, I must. If they get past us, though …”

“I’ll smash the sextant.” Leie promised.

“Meanwhile, make all the numbers small as you can!” Maia shouted back as she followed the men, limping. Her knee had swollen and was hurting more than ever. Behind her, the model universe resumed its blurry race across the wall.

Sailors jammed into a tight mob near the hallway’s right-angle turn. All gunfire had ceased by the time she arrived, and the jabber of milling males evoked consternation and fear, not impending combat. Maia had to nudge and elbow her way through an aromatic throng of men. When she reached the front of the crowd, she gasped. The ship’s doctor knelt beside, the prostrate form of the Manitou’s first officer, stanching a flow of blood from a jagged wound. A knife, dripping crimson ichor, lay on the ground nearby. Of Captain Poulandres, there was no sign.

“What happened?” she asked the ensign she had spoken to earlier. The youth seemed distressed, his face as white as the wounded man’s.

“It was a trap, ma’am. Or maybe the reavers just got mad. We heard lots o’ yelling. The cap’n tried to keep ’em calm, but we could tell they were accusin’ him of something. One of ’em pulled a knife while the other kicked the cap’n, real bad.” He winced in recollection. “They dragged him off while guns shot at us from that end, keepin’ us pinned down.”

Damn, Maia thought, quashing her natural impulse toward sympathy for poor Poulandres. She had been counting on him to buy time, not provoke open warfare! Now what remained, but to prepare for Baltha’s threatened assault?

The first officer was mumbling to the doctor. Maia crouched lower to hear.

“… said we must’ve helped the rads…Cap’n tried askin’ how? How an’ why’d we help a buncha unniks do in our own ship? But they wouldn’t listen…”

Maia rode out a lancing shock to her wounded left knee as she dropped to the ground beside the officer. “What did you say? Do you mean the Manitou is—”

“Gone…” The sailor sighed.”…didn’t say how. Just took th’ cap’n, and …” His eyes rolled up in their sockets as he swooned.

A moment’s stunned silence followed, then arguing broke out among the men, many of them shaking their heads with the hopeless passivity of despair.

“Don’t see any other choice. We’ve got to surrender!”

“Cap’n blew it with somethin’ he said. We should send ’nother embassy …”

“They’ll come an’ cut us to bits!”

Somebody helped Maia stand. Suddenly, it seemed that everyone was looking at her.

Just because I broke you halfway out of jail—and got you all into even worse trouble—that doesn’t make me a leader, she thought caustically, seeing incipient panic in their dilated eyes. Robbed of their top officers, they fell back on old habits of childhood, looking for a woman authority figure. The time of year didn’t help. “Wissy as a winter man;” went one expression. Still, Maia knew that seasons alone weren’t decisive. The crew might stand a chance, if someone got them busy, building momentum based on action. She saw an older bosun standing next to the corner, holding the automatic rifle. “Can you handle that thing?” she asked.

The gruff sailor nodded grimly. “Yes, ma’am. I figure. Just half o’ the bullets left, but I can wait an’ make ’em count.”

That fierce statement helped change the mood a bit. Other males murmured tentative agreement. Maia poked her head around the corner and peered down the gloomy corridor. “There’s plenty of old trash and debris in nearby rooms. The quickest of you could dash from one to another, too fast for them to draw a bead in the dark, and toss stuff into the main hall. If not a barricade, the junk might at least slow down a charge.”

The ensign nodded. “We’ll look for planks and stones… things to use as weapons.”

“Good.” Maia turned to the doctor. “What can we do, in case they use smoke?”

The old man shrugged. “Tear pieces of cloth, I guess. Dampen them with—”

A sharp cry interrupted from behind them. It was Leie’s voice, resonating even out here.

“Maia! Come back and see this!”

Torn by conflicting duties, Maia bit her lip. If the men fell apart now, there’d be surrender or worse just as soon as the reavers chose to push. On the other hand, even tenacious resistance wouldn’t do much good in the long run, unless an overall solution was found. All hope for that lay at the end of the hall.

“As senior officer, I should stay,” the navigator told her, and Maia knew he was right, by normal standards. These weren’t normal circumstances.

“Please,” she urged. “We need you below.” She turned to the young ensign. “Can your guild and shipmates rely on you?”

The young man was but a year older than Maia. Now, though, he stood up straighter, and squared his shoulders. “They can,” he answered, and seemed as relieved as Maia to hear the words. “Count on it!” he finished with determination, and swiveled to face the men, snapping orders to implement Maia’s suggestions.

“All right,” the navigator said, reassured. “But let’s hurry.”

When they turned to start down the hall, Maia almost fell as her left leg threatened to give out. The young officer took her weight on one arm, and helped her limp back toward the chamber containing the miracle wall. Behind them, sounds of brisk, organized activity replaced what had verged, only moments before, on outright panic. During the brief walk, Maia fretted. Something’s happened to the Manitou. Something that made the reavers throw out their promise to Poulandres.

Had the first officer mentioned it having to do with the rads? Did Thalla and the other prisoners break out? The possibility gladdened Maia, but in a dry and hopeless way, for anything that made the pirates upstairs more desperate only provoked more dire threat down here.

Maia suppressed her worries as she let the navigator help her toward glimpses of starlight. For a moment, it made a fine illusion. As if the screen were just a great big opening in the wall, she wished. Leading straight into a winter night.

On arriving at the doorway, she and her companion cried out at the same time, in joyful recognition. Before them, splayed across a twinkling firmament like a great blot, lay the multitendriled nebulosity known as the Claw. It grew smaller, incrementally, until familiar patterns of stars crowded in along each side.

“Took you long enough!” Leie chided as they approached. “Look, I just can’t get it any closer than this.”